Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned

Clarence Darrow is the lawyer every law school student dreams of being: on the side of right, loved by many women, played by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind. His days-long closing arguments delivered without notes won miraculous reprieves for men doomed to hang.

Louis D. Brandeis: A Life

The first full-scale biography in 25 years of one of the most important and distinguished justices to sit on the Supreme Court - an audiobook that reveals Louis D. Brandeis the reformer, lawyer, and jurist, and Brandeis the man, in all of his complexity, passion, and wit. As a lawyer in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, he pioneered how modern law is practiced.

One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon

Based largely on documents declassified in only the last few years, One Man Against the World paints a devastating portrait of a tortured yet brilliant man who led the country largely according to a deep-seated insecurity and distrust of not only his cabinet and Congress but the American population at large. In riveting, tick-tock prose, Weiner illuminates how the Vietnam War and the Watergate controversy that brought about Nixon's demise were inextricably linked.

Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law

In Taking the Stand, Dershowitz reveals the evolution of his own thinking on such fundamental issues as censorship and the First Amendment, Civil Rights, Abortion, homicide, and the increasing role that science plays in a legal defense. Alan Dershowitz, the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at Harvard University, and the author of such acclaimed bestsellers as Chutzpah, The Best Defense, and Reversal of Fortune, for the first time recounts his legal biography.

Circle of Greed: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of America's Most Feared and Loathed Lawyer

Circle of Greed is the epic story of the rise and fall of Bill Lerach, once the leading class action lawyer in America and now a convicted felon. For more than two decades, Lerach threatened, shook down and sued top Fortune 500 companies, including Disney, Apple, Time Warner, and most famously, Enron. Now, the man who brought corporate moguls to their knees has fallen prey to the same corrupt impulses of his enemies, and is paying the price by serving time in federal prison.

Confessions of a Criminal Lawyer: A Memoir

A successful former defense attorney exposes the raw truth about the courtroom “game” and a career spent defending the guilty. As an advocate for the accused in Newark, New Jersey, criminal lawyer Seymour Wishman defended a vast array of clients, from burglars and thieves to rapists and murderers. Many of them were poor and undereducated, and nearly all of them were guilty. But it was not Wishman’s duty to pass moral judgment on those he represented. His job was to convince a jury to set his clients free or, at the very least, to impose the most lenient punishment permissible by law.

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices

They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. Scorpions tells the story of four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind and Changed the History of Free Speech in America

Free speech as we know it comes less from the First Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all individual rights, including the right to express one's political views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who wrote a dissenting opinion that would become the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States.

Mencken: the American Iconoclast: The Life and Times of the Bad Boy of Baltimore

Rodgers vividly recreates Mencken's era: the glittering tapestry of turn-of-the-century America, the roaring twenties, depressed thirties, and the home front during World War II. But the heart of the book is Mencken.

John Marshall: The Chief Justice Who Saved the Nation

A soul-stirring biography of John Marshall, the young Republic's great chief justice who led the Supreme Court to power and brought law and order to the nation. In the political turmoil that convulsed America after George Washington's death, the surviving Founding Fathers went mad - literally pummeling each other in Congress and challenging one another to deadly duels in their quest for power. Out of the political intrigue, one man emerged to restore calm and dignity to the government: John Marshall.

Strong Advocate: The Life of a Trial Lawyer

In Strong Advocate, Thomas Strong, one of the most successful trial lawyers in Missouri's history, chronicles his adventures as a contemporary personal injury attorney. Though the profession is held in low esteem by the general public, Strong entered the field with the right motives: to help victims who have been injured by defective products or through the negligence of others.

As a twelve-year-old in rural southwest Missouri during the Great Depression, Strong bought a cow, then purchased others as he could afford them, and eventually financed his education with the milk he sold.

Machine Made: Tammany Hall and the Creation of Modern American Politics

For decades, history has considered Tammany Hall, New York's famous political machine, shorthand for the worst of urban politics: graft, crime, and patronage personified by notoriously corrupt characters. Infamous crooks like William "Boss" Tweed dominate traditional histories of Tammany, distorting our understanding of a critical chapter of American political history. In Machine Made, historian and New York City journalist Terry Golway convincingly dismantles these stereotypes.

No Stone Unturned: The True Story of the World's Premier Forensic Investigators

No Stone Unturned recreates the genesis of NecroSearch International: a small ,eclectic group of scientists and law enforcement personal, active and retired, who volunteer their services to help locate the clandestine graves of murder victims and recover the remains and evidence to assist with the apprehension and conviction of the killers.

The Federal Rules of Evidence Simplified!: Perfect Study Tool for Every Law Student & Practicing Attorney

This audiobook will let you learn and review the core elements of federal evidence rules which apply in most states and local districts as well. Morton covers the 11 important areas: General Provisions, Judicial Notice, Presumptions, Relevancy, Privileges, Witnesses, Opinions & Expert Testimony, Hearsay, Authentication & Identification, Contents of WritingRecordingsPhotos & Miscellaneous Rules. A must listen for every law student, lawyer, and people interested in the law or involved in legal cases.

The Genesis of Justice

What if an angel hadn't stopped Abraham from sacrificing his son Isaac? What does Genesis seem to be telling us about taking revenge? Or what is it saying about capital punishment? Drawing on biblical commentary from throughout the ages, Alan Dershowitz shines a brilliant legal light on the stories that comprise the foundation of our society.

This three-hour audiobook will let you learn and review the core elements of criminal procedure, which apply in most states and local districts, as well. Morton covers the eight important areas: the fourth amendment, statesments, confessions, identifications, pretrial procedure, the sixth amendment, post trial, prisoner and juvenile rights, double jeopardy, and procedural considerations, and the criminal defendant. A must-listen for every law student, lawyer, and people interested in the law or involved in legal cases.

Civil Liberties and the Bill of Rights

The civil liberties and constitutional rights possessed by our nation's citizens-not only in theory, but in the courtroom, where the state can be forced to honor those liberties-are a uniquely American invention.And when we were taught history and learned about the Constitution and its Bill of Rights, we were always made aware of that uniqueness, of the extraordinary experiment that gave to every citizen of this new nation a gift possessed by no others.

Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption

Bryan Stevenson was a young lawyer when he founded the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal practice dedicated to defending those most desperate and in need: the poor, the wrongly condemned, and women and children trapped in the farthest reaches of our criminal justice system. One of his first cases was that of Walter McMillian, a young man who was sentenced to die for a notorious murder he insisted he didn’t commit.

Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted

Few American institutions have inflicted greater suffering on ordinary people than the Supreme Court of the United States. Since its inception the justices of the Supreme Court have shaped a nation where children toiled in coal mines, where Americans could be forced into camps because of their race, and where a woman could be sterilized against her will by state law.

Letters to a Young Lawyer

As defender of both the righteous and the questionable, Alan Dershowitz has become perhaps the most famous and outspoken attorney in the land. Whether or not they agree with his legal tactics, most people would agree that he possesses a powerful and profound sense of justice. In this meditation on his profession, Dershowitz writes about life, law, and the opportunities that young lawyers have to do good and do well at the same time.

Arc of Justice: A Saga of Race, Civil Rights, and Murder in the Jazz Age

The grandson of a slave, Dr. Ossian Sweet moved his family to an all-white Detroit neighborhood in 1925. When his neighbors attempted to drive him out, Sweet defended himself, resulting in the death of a white man and a murder trial for Sweet. There followed one of the most important (and shockingly unknown) cases in Civil Rights history. Also caught up in the intense courtroom drama were legal giant Clarence Darrow and the newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).

Atheism for Dummies

Atheism For Dummies offers a brief history of atheist philosophy and its evolution, explores it as a historical and cultural movement, covers important historical writings on the subject, and discusses the nature of ethics and morality in the absence of religion. A simple, yet intelligent exploration of an often misunderstood philosophy.

Thomas Paine's Rights of Man: A Biography: Books That Changed the World

Thomas Paine was one of the greatest political propagandists in history. The Rights of Man, first published in 1791, is the key to his reputation. Inspired by his outrage at Edmund Burke's attack on the uprising of the French people, Paine's text is a passionate defense of the rights of man. Paine argued against monarchy and outlined the elements of a successful republic, including public education, pensions, and relief of the poor and unemployed, all financed by income tax.

Publisher's Summary

Clarence Darrow is the lawyer every law school student dreams of being: on the side of right, loved by many women, played by Spencer Tracy in Inherit the Wind. His days-long closing arguments delivered without notes won miraculous reprieves for men doomed to hang.

Darrow left a promising career as a railroad lawyer during the tumultuous Gilded Age in order to champion poor workers, blacks, and social and political outcasts against big business, Jim Crow, and corrupt officials. He became famous defending union leader Eugene Debs in the land­mark Pullman Strike case and went from one headline case to the next-until he was nearly crushed by an indictment for bribing a jury. He redeemed himself in Dayton, Tennessee, defending schoolteacher John Scopes in the “Monkey Trial,” cementing his place in history.

Now, John A. Farrell draws on previously unpublished correspondence and memoirs to offer a candid account of Darrow's divorce, affairs, and disastrous finances; new details of his feud with his law partner, the famous poet Edgar Lee Masters; a shocking disclosure about one of his most controversial cases; and explosive revelations of shady tactics he used in his own trial for bribery.

Clarence Darrow is a sweeping, surprising portrait of a leg­endary legal mind.

"John A. Farrell, with access to previously unavailable materials, brings the 'grandest legal career in American history' to life again in a masterfully researched and elegantly written volume." (The Boston Globe)

I found this biography of Darrow interesting, I learned a lot of information about the politics of the time as well as the social problems leading to worker's unions strikes and as well as the state of the Law. Farrell presented in detail each of Darrow's most famous trials. I was most interested in his defense of Eugene Debs and the Pullman strike. It was covered in another book I read not long ago but from a different point of view. The other trial I was anxious to read about was the John Scope's trial. I had seen the movie with Spencer Tracy but never read about it in detail. Farrell also covers Darrow's early tries at politics and covers his failed marriages and repeated affairs. I was disappointed that Farrell did not mention Earl Rogers as Darrow's attorney when he was tried for jury tampering. Over all this book reveal Darrow as a man with flaws and a great legal mind who had an actors flare when in trial. If you are interested in reading about the fight for the middle class and the Jim Crow laws between 1890 to 1930's you will learn a lot from this book. Danny Campbell did a good job narrating this book.

John A. Farrell’s biography of Clarence Darrow shows a human being that carries neither the staff of Moses nor the fork of Beelzebub. Darrow is a man both good and bad, riven with temptation, transgression, and guilt; like all conventionally normal human beings.

Farrell shows Darrow as one above a crowd of 19th century humanists because of a bed-rock belief that no higher authority has the right to murder another. Though Darrow never finishes college, he is shown as a man with an excellent memory, exceptional oratorical skill, and a prescient understanding of human nature. On the road to “Esquiredom”, Darrow–a literary omnivore, reads and quotes the lions of literature.

Darrow believes all human beings, by nature, are flawed and capable of minor and/or major transgressions. Because of Darrow’s view of human nature, he earned a reputation for defending the poor and powerless; representing heinous murderers, reviled minorities, divorcing wives, and indigent families. Whether guilty or innocent, Darrow defended the accused. He charged the highest rates for those who could afford it, and charged as little as possible for those with limited resources. Farrell shows Darrow on the right side of history, supporting union movements and civil rights for Negroes and women when both are anathema to most government and business leaders.

This is an excellent biography; well narrated by Danny Campbell. Farrell shows Darrow to be a flawed hero that helped turn the tide of capitalist greed and American’ discrimination; both of which are battles still raging in the 21st century.

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